Teaching, Tutoring, Mentoring, and Coaching

Are they all the same? Show them you care!

The most important questions I’m asked, time and time again, as I interview prospective clients and their parents during the initial consultation are always the same.

Interestingly, the questions are never stated, they are always implied…and always by the child. There is an undercurrent, a conversation within the conversation, occurring simultaneously throughout the hour and one-half we spend together.

The questions:

Can I trust you with my most important secrets?

And, if so, will you listen to me and hear what I am saying?

And finally, will your treat me with respect, knowing that when all is said and done, I am nervous, a little bit afraid, and very, very self-conscious?

At the end of the day, all I want to know or do is:

Get through the day unscathed!

As much as possible, be with the people I know will not judge me!

Know that my parents and siblings love me!

And finally, know that my home, whether an apartment, duplex, townhouse, condominium, house, or mud hut is my sanctuary…the one place I can feel utterly and completely safe!

The first steps to winning over a child:

Trust them! As a tutor, mentor, and/or coach, it is not your place to verify…simply trust them. Children know in an instant if you do not trust them!

Respect them! This is crucial, a child will sense in an instant if respect is absent…and you may never win them back!

Never lie to them! Children have truth radar more precise than anything NASA has orbiting the Earth. Lie to a child and he or she will write you off forever! They may want to believe you again…but don’t count on it!

Treat them as individuals! Children do not like it when they are compared to others, particularly if they feel like they are coming up short. Treat them as separate and distinct entities, worthy of your trust, respect, and admiration. Do that and they will do back flips for you…any time you ask them too!

This video has a message and if you can look to that message, and then search your heart, you will discover that this message applies to many of our relationships with children.

Sadly, it is what we do to young people as we drive them to conform; and, in doing so, we create homogenized, barely-average students.

Had we stepped back, guided, encouraged, and polished…we could have allowed what was already just beneath the surface to flourish.